thoughts centering themselves about the slender white-clad
girl across the table from him. rather than upon his food or
even upon his plan of campaign. He replied in monosyllables
to her pleasant table-talk, and when his eye chanced to meet
hers he had an odd feeling of guilt.

She was so pretty, so little, so young, so adorably friendly
and innocent in her every look and word! Something very like
a heartache began to manifest itself in Gavin Brice's
supposedly immune breast. And this annoyed him more than
ever. He told himself solemnly that this girl was none of the
wonderful things she seemed to be, and that he was an idiot
for feeling as he did.

To shake free from his unwonted reverie he asked abruptly, as
the meal ended:

"Would you mind telling me why you drew a revolver on me last
evening? You don't seem the kind of girl to adopt Wild West
tactics and to carry a pistol around with you here in peaceful
Florida. I don't want to seem inquisitive, of course, but ?"

"And I don't want to seem secretive," she replied. nervously.
"All I can tell you is that my brother has--has enemies (as
you know from the attack on him) and that he doesn't think it
is safe for me to go around the grounds alone, late in the
day, unarmed. So he gave me that old pistol of his, and asked
me to carry it. That was why he sent North for Bobby Burns--
as a guard for me and for the place here. When I saw you
appearing out of the swamp I--I took you for some one else.